Am I eating enough?

read this. its soooo helpful! and made by an MFP member!

http://body-improvements.com/resources/eat/

i read that the 1,200 calorie thing is a myth. It is actually 600 calories or lower before the body goes into starvation mode...So if you burn 600 calories, you should eat at least 1,200. If you burn 1,000 you should eat at least 1,600 (according to the research I read). I would recommend more calories than 600 per day unless you are a legal midget like I am or are already extremely thin. ^.^

I'm not a doctor though ^.^

I'd eat about 1800 calories a day if my workouts burnt 1000 calories.

^^^This sounds about right to me.
If you're eating 1200 but burning 800 on exercise, you're only netting about 400, which is too low.

if you can provide stuff like height, weight, age and body fat if you have it, then we can figure out what you should be eating. Also, a goal weight would help.

First, my experience. When I was, well quite a bit younger , in my mid-20s, I was at a very healthy, lean weight. I exercised every day and my normal daily diet was low-fat, lean meats, and reasonable carbs. I ate "junk" food occasionally, but not terribly often. I started feeling "bad"… like something was wrong. I was tired and less focused. Things just weren't "right". I went to the doctor and they ran blood tests. According to them, I was healthier than the average person. For some reason, I started wondering if I ate enough. Mind you, I never felt hungry and I liked what I ate. But, anyway, I started tracking the calories I ate and the what I burned through exercise. What I found is that I was ending up with only around 600 calories a day to "live" on! It was not enough… at least not for me. It was quite liberating! Few times in my life (like maybe twice) have I actually been able to eat MORE. When I upped my calorie intake … just by eating more of what I was already eating… I started feeling like my old self again.

Here is a very small excerpt from the web page provided by another MFP person in this thread….

"Women who are cutting calories by as much as 60%, lifting weights 3 times per week, and performing high intensity sprints or circuits 5 days per week are a dime a dozen where I come from. Hell, some of these women might even throw a few lower intensity conditioning sessions into the mix as well. Their exercise load is that of an advanced athlete yet their calorie intake is that of a sedentary, 100 lb female. Not only are they depriving their bodies, but their neurotic tendencies are bordering on addiction.

Sure, a calorie deficit is necessary in order to tap into fat. But it seems that energy availability is a foreign concept to most people. They disregard the fact that after ‘calories in’ and ‘calories out’ are accounted for, there has to be something left to support health, muscle, energy, basal functions, and metabolism. The deeper you cut calories, the bigger the hit to recovery ability. Logic would tell us that if recovery ability is drastically reduced, it’d be wise to govern how much recovery is needed. But that’s not what’s happening when I see these people slaving away at soul crushing workloads and intensities day in and day out while being energy deprived."

Great comment darlilama ! I needed to read this even if it was not intended for me